This Saturday, 8 February, nearly 30 human rights groups, including Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Taiwanese, and Chinese allies will gather outside the Royal Mint Court to protest at the proposed new site for the Chinese Embassy in London. The action, dubbed ‘Space for Free Speech’ opposes the establishment of what would be the largest Chinese embassy in Europe, at a site of strategic vulnerability in the heart of London. It has previously been opposed by the local council and municipal authorities. ARTICLE 19 calls on the Metropolitan Police to guarantee enhanced protections for the right to protest and freedom of expression considering the risk of Chinese transnational repression against activists and organizers before, during, and after the demonstration. Parliament should also consider the specific holistic risks surrounding protest events as it launches its inquiry into transnational repression in the UK.
Forthcoming ARTICLE 19 research on China’s global assault on the freedom to protest illustrates trends and tactics of transnational repression specifically targeting those who demonstrate against China’s human rights abuses outside of embassies and consulates around the world. The following cases are emblematic.
Hong Kongers attacked in Manchester
On 16 October 2022 the National Party Congress, which saw Xi Jinping assume an unprecedented third term, kicked off in Beijing, with information manipulation on overdrive, including Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda extolling Xi Jinping’s accomplishments and intensified online censorship.
Timed with Xi Jinping’s remarks, some 5,000 miles away, a group of largely Hong Kong protesters gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate in Manchester to protest China’s human rights abuses toward Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere.
The demonstration turned violent as consulate officials dressed in motorcycle helmets and padded vests attacked the protesters. One of them, Bob Chan, a British National Overseas (BNO) visa holder, was violently dragged by masked men into the consulate grounds and beaten up. A Facebook Live video from the incident, republished by the Guardian, captured the clash between protesters and consulate officials attempting to destroy the posters and banners, while another angle clearly showed Chan being beaten after he was dragged into the consulate grounds. He was pulled out to safety by British police. Chan was later treated at a hospital for his injuries.
China’s Consul General in Manchester, Zheng Xiyuan later admitted to participating in the attack, telling Sky News that Chan ‘was abusing my country, my leader, I think it’s my duty’.
Despite all that transpired outside the consulate in 2022, Bob Chan later relayed to ARTICLE 19, “I will never give up on my fight for freedom and democracy.”
Uyghurs and Kazakhs persecuted in Kazakhstan
Baibolat Kunbolat, an ethnic Kazakh originally from the Ili Prefecture of East Turkestan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) in China, immigrated with his wife and three children to Kazakhstan in 2002. Like the region’s majority Uyghurs, Kazakhs have faced persecution, surveillance, torture, and mass-internment in China. This has been met by protests in Kazakhstan, where many persecuted Kazakhs, Uyghurs, and other Muslim minorities in China have relatives.
For Baibolat Kunbolat, a regular demonstrator in front of the embassy in Nur-Sultan, his focus has been securing freedom for his brother, Baimurat Nauryzbek, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 over an online article from 2012. In addition to protest outside of the embassy, Kunbolat also maintained an ongoing demonstration in front of the consulate in Almaty from late 2019 until 2024.
In reprisal for his protest, Kazakh police have detained him on multiple occasions. He later told ARTICLE 19 that during his detention Kazakh authorities issued veiled threats against his children and menacingly asked what would happen if he died in detention, referencing another Kazakh dissident known for protesting China who died in custody a few years earlier. For Kunbolat, the warning was clear.
In February 2024 he and his family fled the country due to mounting reprisals from Kazakh authorities. Kunbolat speculated to ARTICLE 19 that this was because of pressure from the Chinese authorities, who have invested heavily in Kazakhstan, to quell his protests.
“Because I protested outside the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan, I believe that it’s the Chinese government that put pressure on the Kazakh government to target me. As it’s threatening to my family, I have no choice but to find ways to leave Kazakhstan and flee to the United States. I will continue my protests for my brother and other Kazakhs.”
Surveilling and harassing Tibetan protesters in the diaspora
For many diaspora protesters the risks of transnational repression go beyond the risk to themselves; they and are often accompanied by collective punishment and targeting of their family members back home. Such risk is often enabled by surveillance technology employed at China’s embassies and consulates. This is pronounced for the members of the Tibetan diaspora.
A 2024 report by Turquoise Roof on surveillance of overseas Tibetan communities quotes one Tibetan protester in Belgium pointing to the prevalence of surveillance cameras outside of Chinese Embassies in Brussels and the Netherlands, saying that the footage of protesting Tibetans outside of embassies is used to deny visas if they ever apply to visit family in China.
Tenzin Dawa, Executive Director of the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) shared with ARTICLE 19 that her organization has documented cases of Tibetans who have participated in peaceful demonstrations outside of Chinese consulates and been photographed only to later find out that Chinese officials and police had shown these pictures to their family members in China with a warning.
Police in China would then order family members to instruct their overseas kin to stop their protest behaviour or their family in China could lose their jobs, be demoted or have their identity cards or household registration cancelled. TCHRD has documented such targetting of Tibet protesters in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.
China’s documented track record as a perpetrator of transnational repression targeting activists protesting its human rights abuses points not only to the heightened risk of repression during acts of protest but also the need for holistic and whole of society approaches to addressing lingering and collective harms. ARTICLE 19 calls on the British police to be on high alert for acts of transnational repression targeting the activists and organizers this weekend. We also encourage Parliament to take into consideration China’s role in assaulting the freedom to protest as part of its recently launched inquiry into transnational repression in the UK.